


The Owl, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

by spitfiree, ssalison



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Canon Compliant, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Spoilers, Pre-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Superhero Shenanigans, theres only one curse word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spitfiree/pseuds/spitfiree, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssalison/pseuds/ssalison
Summary: "You have got to start leaving longer voicemails for me. ‘Meet me at Françoise Dupont High’s principal’s office in fifteen minutes’ sounds like we’re American spies.”Ladybug rubs her red-gloved hands together meditatively, ignoring him. If he wanted longer voicemails maybe he should have picked up when she had called the other three times.“You’re not wrong.” she agrees.“I-I’m not?” he says, surprised. “I mean, those voicemails have—”“Because we,” she interrupts grandly. “Are going to spy on a principal.”_____________________________________________________Takes place during the Dark Owl episode (2x08)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 3
Kudos: 43





	The Owl, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this solely based on the fact that it sucks how ladynoir never talk abt their feelings (thomas ass-truck do better) and also the wasted potential in having marinette and adrien be forced to hang out with each other after school for a week
> 
> comments and advice always appreciated bc of general dumbassery
> 
> NOTE: we switch btwn marinette and ladybug bc its easier to keep track of when theyre in and out of costume

“We have _got_ to stop meeting like this.”

Ladybug glances over. Chat Noir balances on the railing, swaying slightly from side to side in the warm breeze. The late afternoon light gilds his hair golden and his eyes a brilliant green, and for some reason she can already feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

She looks away with a laugh, turning her attention back to Mr. Damocles’ school office. “Stop following me and maybe it’ll happen.”

He hops down from the balcony with a light tap, before skipping his way over to stand beside her in front of the painting in Mr. Damocles’ office

“But bugaboo, you’re the one that called _me_ here. Also, you have _got_ to start leaving longer voicemails for me. ‘Meet me at Françoise Dupont High’s principal’s office in fifteen minutes’ sounds like we’re American spies.”

Ladybug rubs her red-gloved hands together meditatively, ignoring him. If he wanted longer voicemails maybe he should have picked up when she had called the other three times. 

“You’re not wrong.” she agrees. 

“I-I’m not?” he says, surprised. “I mean, those voicemails have—” 

“Because we,” she interrupts grandly. “Are going to spy on a principal.” 

With a firm jerk of her hand, she reveals (not without a flare of the dramatic) the secret wardrobe hidden behind the map of Paris. On display are Knight Owl comics discontinued more than a decade before Ladybug was even born, battered Knight Owl figurines, what looks to be a lifetime’s collected memorabilia. A couple of torn out notebook pages lie scattered on the ground. A clothes rack in the middle of the wardrobe hangs conspicuously empty. 

“What _is_ this place?” Chat ducks his head inside and picks up one of the ripped pages that flutter out after Ladybug’s enthusiastic pull. “It looks like weapons schematics. Not very good ones at that, either.” 

Ladybug peeks over his shoulder, before ducking away again to examine the wardrobe in greater detail. 

“You remember Nadja Chamack’s news report last week on a bunch of sightings of a strange man running around Paris in an owl costume, trying to save people? I had a hunch it was Mr. Damocles and, while I was waiting for you to pick up, I searched his office and found _this_.” She gestures again at the open compartment. 

“You discovered all this on just a hunch? You’re incredible.” Chat looks up from the comics pages he’d been idling rifling through, one of his shining smiles lighting up his face.

“Stop that,” she mutters. Is she talking about the compliment? The smile? Gah. 

“I say what I think,” he offers, shrugging. “And I think Mr. Damocles is pretty harmless. So what if he likes to play dress up? He’s not hurting anyone.”

“Do you know him?” Ladybug asks, curious, before checking herself. “Sorry! Sorry, I know we said no personal questions. And I’m pretty sure he’s harmless too, but we can’t have renegade superheroes rampaging across Paris whenever they have a flight of fancy either. We have our kwamis, but what do they have?” She glances down at the paper Chat is still holding. “Homemade hook lines?”

Chat dips his head in acquiescence, then leans against the mahogany desk in the center of the office. 

“That makes sense,” he sighs, then immediately brightens. “But he’ll be doing this for awhile, won’t he? We’ll have to spend a lot of time together just to make sure he isn’t hurting anyone.”

He leaps up onto the railing once again, glancing excitedly back at Ladybug. “Come _on_ , we have a principal to hunt down. And there’s this great ice cream place I think he’d be at. Maybe you’d like to get a scoop with me, my lady.”

Another leap, and he’s onto the next building over. 

Ladybug rolls her eyes and smiles. “Looks like there’s two people I’ll have to babysit,” she mutters, before following Chat into the afternoon sun. 

______________________________________

It’s the second day of their watch on “the Owl,” and there are only so many cats you can stand being saved from trees before you want to stab yourself in the eyes. The bright orange figure jumps around below in the sprawling expanse of the park while Ladybug and Chat Noir watch from the rooftops. Chat: sprawled along his side, spinning Ladybug’s yo-yo back and forth along the string. Ladybug: idling playing with his tail while still keeping an eye on Mr. Damocles’ excited, frenetic progress through the park. 

“Lady.”

“Hm?” she says absentmindedly. Who decided to give Chat his tail? She has an irrepressible urge to tug at it, and does so. 

“Lady, he’s trying to use the grappling hook again. Shouldn’t we stop him?”

“Oh, for the love of—Owl, sir, please let us help you with that!”

Ladybug jerks herself out of her reverie and jumps down to the street, racing over to where Mr. Damocles struggles in a valiant fight against the park bush that tangled his hook. Chat Noir follows behind, laughing. 

Ms. Chamack hurries over, looking harried. “Ladybug, Chat Noir, perfect timing, I need some help.” She points her ever present microphone in their faces while an equally harried man with a video recorder points his lens at their faces.

Chat smirks and looks over to where Mr. Damocles is still struggling with the bush. “Really? Couldn't have pieced that together for myself.” 

“Oh shush, kitty,” Ladybug says, distracted. She’s already unwinding the wire from the two branches it had been tangled up in and carefully deposits the offending hook into Mr. Damocles’ expectant hands. 

“Many thanks, Ladybug,” says the principal magnanimously, “It’s nice to see superheroes who can function so well as a team. I wouldn't even have needed your help usually, but the Grappler 2000 hasn’t been working the way it should lately.” 

He seems bent on rambling on for another twenty minutes on the vastly superior design of the Grappler 2000 versus its older brother the Grappler 1000—for whom a strong gust of wind had proven too much just yesterday—when Ms. Chamack decides to butt in again. 

“As two respected and established superheroes, what are your thoughts on this new wave of amateur heroism sweeping Paris?” asks the reporter. Her eyes are like laser beams, ready to be the first one who gets the scoop on the superheroes. 

Ladybug gazes past the reporter’s shoulder and scratches behind her ear. It’s been ages since she’s become one of Paris’ most prominent figures, and even longer since she’s been Ladybug, but each public interview is still just as awkward as the last. She casts a desperate glance at Chat; for some reason, he always seems so relaxed in front of the cameras.

“Well, I—” she begins rather awkwardly.

“Whoops! Looks like I’m getting a call on my, um, superhero phone!” chirps Chat out of nowhere. He then proceeds to (very obviously) mime telephone noises with his hand over his mouth. “Ring, ring! Oh no, princess, looks like we’re going to have to get out of here to go stop another villain! See you later, Nadja, it’s been great chatting with you.” 

“Wha—” Ladybug tries again, before Chat shushes her with his other hand, sweeps her up bridal style, and leaps into the air. In moments, Mr. Damocles, Nadja Chamack and her cameraman are just tiny specks in a swathe of greenery. Only then does he land on a rooftop to catch their breaths. 

“Chat! Chat, you can’t just _do_ that, you know our weapons don’t work like—Chat! Stop laughing.” Ladybug gives up, exasperated. “It wasn’t _that_ funny.”

“But her face, bugaboo, her face!” He leans his head against the side of hers and takes a peek at her expression through one slitted green eye. She can practically _feel_ the curl of his smile against her cheek. 

“It was a tiny bit funny how terrible you are at lying,” she finally admits, a tad guiltily. “But why did you decide to escape just then?” 

“Wasn’t it obvious?” he asks. She shakes her head. It’s never obvious with Chat. “It was for you, Ladybug. I know how much you hate interviews. It’s always for you.”

Ladybug’s face instantly flames. It’s just—no boy’s ever said anything so sincerely nice to her before, not even Adrien in her wildest fantasies. And his face is so close to hers. She could count his freckles, the flecks of gold in his eyes, watch his dimple reappear each time he smiles. Her treacherous arms are still wrapped around his neck, and horrifyingly, they tighten around him even more for one telling second. The second she realizes this, she lets go and takes two steps back, darting a glance at his face (equally red) before looking away again. 

She wraps an arm around herself protectively. “I bet you tell all the girls that,” she laughs nervously. 

When he doesn’t reply, she takes another peek at his face. The blush is there, but now he’s deadly serious. 

“Princess, how many times do I have to tell you before you get it? It’s only ever been you.” 

And suddenly, she’s furious. Who was Chat, to tell her things when he knows she can’t return those feelings? They were fine the way they were now, partners in crime, perfectly in sync. The villains get de-evilized, the big bad gets vanquished. No one has to get hurt. 

Ladybug takes a deep breath in. It’s fine. She’s dealt with him spouting nonsense like this before. She can handle it. What she’s about to say is going to hurt Chat, but it’s important to keep their relationship professional when they have to be responsible for all of Paris. She can also admit she’s angry and just plain sick and tired of Chat’s fruitless efforts.

“Chat Noir, I’ve told you before that I love someone else and even if I didn’t, we could never happen. We have a duty, a responsibility to Paris, and us being involved romantically would only get in the way of that,” Ladybug snapped at him, all in one breath.

“I-I’m sorry my lady, I was just joking around.” He finally looks away in the face of her genuine anger. “But you never pay attention to what I’m saying. You always brush me away or laugh it off and never _listen_ to me.”

“Just,” his voice breaks, “just listen to me.”

“You listen to _me_ , Chat Noir,” she says, low-voiced. “You don't even know my real name. You don't even know how old I am. Can't you see? None of it is _real_.”

He flinches, as if she’s slapped him. “It’s real to _me_ ,” he says, under his breath. 

She turns away.

“Let’s just stop, okay?” she tosses over her shoulder before jumping down and rounding the street corner, wiping away a stray tear from her cheek. _Stop it. It had to be said and you said it, so there’s nothing to be sad about. He’ll get over it; he didn’t really mean it anyway._

If that was true, why does it hurt so much when Marinette thinks of her last glimpse of Chat’s expression?

_________________________________________

Marinette leans back against her covers in the safety of her own loft, tracing the whorls in the ceiling’s wood panelling with her eyes. 

It had only been Mom in the kitchen, making another batch of her signature croissants (“Marinette! Are you hungry?”), but Marinette slams the door before she can be tempted to stop and confess all. She had made the right choice; Chat was always so fickle and carefree, so she had to be the one to think of the larger consequences. 

It takes a while of Marinette idly flicking the Ladybug phone open and closed back and forth, just thinking, before she finally notices the flashing missed voicemail. Chat Noir’s of course, right after she had sent hers back in the principal’s office (had that only been yesterday?).

Almost involuntarily, she clicks it open and immediately hears Chat’s bright, tinny voice come through the speaker. 

“Hey bugaboo! More bad guys to save? Don’t worry, nobody can stand in the face of our combined might!”

She snorts. It’s so easy to imagine the smug face and stupid posturing Chat always throws in. She can hear a faint whooshing of wind in the background; he must have come running the instant he heard her call, making the voicemail as he travelled across Paris. 

That was one of the best things about Chat. Even when he acted silly (like, too-embarrassing-to-be-seen-in-public-with silly) he could still be counted on when it mattered. 

His voice drops an octave and, almost embarrassed, he mutters an “I missed you,” followed by the click of the voicemail ending. 

Oh my-

I- 

Marinette covers her face with one hand, frustrated and pleased and still mad, all at the same time. Why does he _say_ things like that? 

This wasn’t doing anyone any good; she had to go track him down. If only so she could finally sort out her feelings about him. 

__________________________________________________

She finally spots him on the roof of the high school, dangling one foot over the edge of the building. Even from the back she can tell he’s still hurt: the sadly curved spine, drooping ears. Even the tail looks a little forlorn. 

Ladybug sighs. She knows it’s not fair to Chat, the way she’s been treating him. But he hasn’t been exactly fair to her either. 

She walks over and sits down to the right of him, surveying the empty courtyard below her. 

“We have _got_ to stop meeting like this,” she says, smiling nervously. 

Chat doesn’t say anything, just flicks his right ear to show he’s listening. 

“Chat, I—No one’s ever confessed to me before. So I basically have _no_ clue what to do when you throw all of these feelings at me. I know, I _know_ , I haven’t been open to listening to you, but I really do like someone else, and I’m not just saying that to get you to leave me alone. I’m really sorry I hurt your feelings. You’re my partner, and I shouldn’t have tried to just pretend all your feelings away. Forgive me?”

When she began her speech, Ladybug could see every muscle of his tensed, ready to dart away at any moment. Once she’s finally winded down, though, he turns and looks her straight in the eyes. 

“No, I’m sorry too,” Chat begins, still not looking away. “I know being a superhero is really important to you and I shouldn’t have kept on making an ass of myself in front of you when you weren’t interested.”

He breaks into a sudden smile. “Sorry I kept on _bugging_ you.”

His change in mood is so abrupt that it startles a laugh out of Ladybug too, before she furiously claps a hand over her mouth. 

“You laughed at my joke. Ha!” 

Ladybug pushes him off the rooftop. 

He flips in the air on the way down and cat-calls back up to her: “You laughed! At my joke!”

“Shut up! My guilt only goes so far.”

  
  
  


EPILOGUE

Marinette shoots out of bed in the middle of the night. 

_Oh my god._

_I completely forgot about Mr. Damocles._


End file.
